Mechanical Engineering

Shannon Smith, center for the Cal State Long Beach women's basketball team, announced that she is leaving the team to concentrate on her schoolwork. She is majoring in mechanical engineering.

A video released by BP this week has underscored questions about the rate at which oil is spewing from a broken pipe on the Gulf of Mexico seabed. BP and government officials have pegged the leak resulting from the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster at 5,000 barrels a day, or about 200,000 gallons. But a scientist who analyzed the video of the gushing pipe said Thursday the oil flow appeared to be much greater. "I spent a couple of hours this afternoon analyzing the video, and the number I get is 70,000 barrels a day coming out of that pipe," said Steve Wereley, a Purdue University mechanical engineering professor.

Re "Institute Tried to Drum 'Civilization' Into Indian Youth," Feb. 23: I am a member of the Tejon Indian Tribe and attended Sherman Institute in Riverside from 1944 until 1946. I was 12 years old when I left home. I was scared, having never been away from home before. We used to go to Bakersfield once a year for our school wear, but I had hardly ever seen any white people. I was given two weeks to get the wildness out of me before I entered my first class. I learned that one could turn the lights on with a switch, get water by turning a valve and flush the toilet with water.

Omar S. Es-Said of Playa del Rey has been named an outstanding engineering educator by the Society of Automotive Engineers. Es-Said, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Loyola Marymount University in Westchester, is among 21 recipients of the Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award. He will be honored at the society's annual congress and exposition, scheduled for Feb. 28 to March 4 in Detroit.

In a memorial service Tuesday that combined sorrow and hope, hundreds of students, faculty and others at San Diego State said farewell to three engineering professors gunned down on campus Aug. 15 and vowed not to let "a mindless act of violence" shatter the university. Stephen L. Weber, president of San Diego State, praised professors Chen Liang, Costas Lyrintzis and Preston Lowrey III for living lives "committed to advancing the human ascent."

Fred E. Hummel, a prominent engineer and community activist who fought against excessive growth in the Ojai Valley, died at Ojai Valley Hospital after a long illness. He was 86. A Ventura County resident for 57 years, Hummel was born in Los Angeles. He was a metallurgical engineering graduate of South Dakota School of Mines. He worked for Shell Oil for many years and his experience included electrical, petroleum and mechanical engineering.

Amid the screaming students at Caltech's Beckman Auditorium on Thursday, Scott DeWinter was deadly calm. When the 22-year-old mechanical engineering major took the stage at the 11th annual Mechanical Engineering Design Contest, he had only two things with him: a gizmo full of Ping-Pong balls and an intense desire to win.

Picture a drag race with a whole lot of drag and very little race. Take away the cheering crowd, roaring engines, adoring girls and teenage angst. Replace it with dozens of engineers in the making and a few of their parents, the smell of chlorine instead of exhaust, watercraft instead of motor craft, and human power instead of horsepower. Then submerge the scene in a 1.5-million-gallon pool of murky greenish-gray water. And they're off. Maybe.

Otto Van Geet's 3,000-square-foot mountain home not only has a spectacular view of Pike's Peak, it comes without an electric bill. More than a mile from the nearest power grid, a 1,200-watt solar system powers lights and runs the television, the computer and the stereo. Lots of wide, specially glazed windows allow sunlight to brighten the two-story home but keep too much heat from seeping in--no air-conditioning needed.

Tom T. Peratis, a retired mechanical engineer, has died at the age of 86. Peratis, who died Thursday at a convalescent care home in Oxnard, was born Dec. 5, 1914, in Los Angeles and later went to the University of Nevada at Reno. He graduated in 1940 with an engineering degree. He worked for many years as the West Coast representative for Luminator Co., headquartered in Plano, Texas. He loved to play golf and ski.

Norman B. Hirsh, engineer and aerospace executive who headed development and production of the Apache attack helicopter used extensively in the Gulf War and most recently in Yugoslavia, has died. He was 65. Hirsh died June 8 in Coto de Caza, Calif., where he had retired. As vice president and general manager of McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Co. in Mesa, Ariz., during the 1980s, Hirsh supervised production and sale of several hundred Apaches to the U.S. Army and to European forces.

At the age of 87, Bill Shallenberger still loves to teach. So much so that he does it for free. His one bit of compensation: The adjunct professor of mechanical engineering at Cal State Northridge gets free parking, which usually costs $63 per semester. "The way I look at it, I've got this experience and it would be a waste if I didn't pass on this experience and knowledge to the students," said Shallenberger, who taught senior design on Tuesdays and Thursdays last semester.

The strategy for a mechanical engineering victory is simple: score first, then pin your opponent down. The plan worked for Caltech senior Ben Turk, who swept through the 13th annual ME72 Engineering Design Competition Thursday in front of a rowdy audience of students and faculty at the school's Beckman Auditorium.

At the age of 87, Bill Shallenberger still loves to teach. So much so that he does it for free. His one bit of compensation: The adjunct professor of mechanical engineering at Cal State Northridge gets free parking, which usually costs $63 per semester. "The way I look at it, I've got this experience and it would be a waste if I didn't pass on this experience and knowledge to the students," said Shallenberger, who taught senior design on Tuesdays and Thursdays last semester.

A lawn mower engine on a card table was not exactly the sort of senior project you might expect from the best and the brightest of UC Irvine's mechanical engineering students. But it was not the lawn mower engine that was relevant. What actually was on display was a new way to measure the energy efficiency of an engine.

Determined to light young minds with the brilliance of a man long dead, Sid Kolpas urged his students to apply Sir Isaac Newton's genius to a mock murder. A body is found outside a house, according to a problem he gave to his Glendale City College students. It is noon, 70 degrees and the temperature of the corpse is 80.6. When did the killer strike?

He designs NASA spacecraft during the week, plays in a symphony orchestra on weekends and was on the threshold of possibly becoming an astronaut, but instead of heading into orbit Jordan A. Kaplan is just fighting to stay alive today since surviving a fiery light plane crash that killed a woman companion. Kaplan, 32, of Pasadena, also played in several string quartets, had taken up swing dancing and was known as a gourmet cook.